Just Cause reports that Wal-Mart is scheduled to open a store in East Oakland around August 24th. Just Cause and the coalition fighting Wal-Mart are making plans to let the public know what impact Wal-Mart has on communities, and to make it known that they want Wal-Mart to leave Oakland. A planning meeting for anti-Walmart actions was held on Tuesday, August 2nd from 3:30pm to 5:30pm in the Just Cause Oakland office at 1212 Broadway, Suite 400 in Oakland.

People have been protesting Wal Mart nationwide as well as locally. In February of 2004, members of Raging Grannies and the Women's International League For Peace And Freedom protested Wal Mart's unfair labor practices and anti-union management policies outside of a store in Mountain View. After workers at a Quebec Wal-Mart store formed a union, the company closed the store. Wal-Mart Watch held "Grill Wal-Mart Week,” a series of neighborhood barbeques that activists and supporters in 25 states have held during the week of July 23-30, 2005

In 2003, Oakland's City Council had voted to limit the size of big-box stores, which are discount retail stores with full-service supermarkets that exceed 100,000 square feet, or about 2.5 acres. Wal-Mart is one of Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown's biggest campaign contributors. This February, protests against Wal-Mart sprang up, as building trades workers protested an out-of-state contractor that used non-union labor in construction of the store.

Just Cause Oakland's Website | Poor Magazine Article about Just Cause and Anti-Walmart Organizing | Wal-Mart Associates Complain About Employer | Wal*Mart Watch | Good Jobs First | Always Low Prices Blog | UC Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Educations' report Hidden Costs of Wal-Mart Jobs | Wal-Mart Sucks | The Case Against Sprawl | UFCW Article: The Wal-Mart Threat | UFCW's Wake Up Wal-Mart Campaign